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The new M2U: Impressions

Banks and bloggers? Not the kind of combination you’d expect but that’s precisely what I got when I stopped by the preview event of the new Maybank2U.com. I was just one among the band of whom I call ‘the usual suspects’. Suanie, KY, LiewCF, James of FriedBeef, Chooki and…if I name anymore, I’ll sound like I’m namedropping. Let’s just say the bulk of the PPS horde showed up at Delicious, Marc Residence.

The site’s undergone a massive revamp in terms of content, layout and functionality. I can say that from the brief test-drive, it’s quite an improvement over the current version with a slickness to it that I’ve yet to experience from any local site.

That wasn’t what impressed me – what did was knowing that Maybank had conducted a rather extensive usability study, going so far as to involve around 1000 people. Which makes sense; this is a site that sees roughly 30 million transactions per month.

Maybank’s pretty much pioneered the whole ‘pay your bills from the comfort of your home’ shtick. They started first, though I remember all the teething problems from its earlier days. Like when it wouldn’t work on Firefox, when a TAC request would take half a day (if it went through at all) and other niggles that made me wonder why I persisted.

All of those little niggles have been fixed with time, but soon M2U was lagging behind the online presences of banks like HSBC. Time to play catch-up and from what I’ve seen so far, the new M2U looks promising.

Less cluttered, compact start page. The current version just has so much going on, my eyes tend to dart all over the place.

My personal favourite: the Payments page. I like how the interface is very intuitive and how M2U is very accommodative of paying bills with OTHER credit cards – consolidating non-Maybank credit cards under one shortcut is to me an act of genius! (Considering as all my credit cards are not Maybank-issued. Heh.) Sneaky, rather. Instead of logging into Bank ABC’s online site to pay bills from there, I can pay all my bills with any credit card with the new M2U! Sweet.

Minuses:

It’s still in beta stage so the site is slow. That will likely be fixed once the site goes live.

Limited Buy Online options. I do love the phone credit top-up service but a few more choices wouldn’t hurt.

I like the stripped-down no-nonsense feel of the site but at the same time, it feels a little too stripped down and bare. But that’s just me. Adding a personal touch to a banking website is probably a bit of a tall order.

Want the URL to the beta site? Sorry, you’ll just have to wait with the rest of the public later this month, when the link to the new site will be placed on the site for you to give the new M2U a whirl. It’s worth the test-drive.